Pencil Storm’s very own Jeremy Porter and his band The Tucos have recently released a new single, a vinyl-only 45.  The A-side is a great new original tune called “Five-Foot-Three and Tiger Eyes” and the B-side is a cover of “While You Spiral”, originally by another Detroit band, The Waxwings. The tracks were produced by Tucos’ drummer Gabriel Doman, artwork was done by John Johnson (Cheap Trick’s Rockford cover), and Timothy Patalan (The Fags, Sponge, Watershed) did the basic track engineering and mixing at The Loft in Saline, MI.

The record was made available for pre-order in early October and was released on October 28th.  It was originally available in basic black vinyl, an incredibly cool tiger stripe and no less than eleven different colors/patterns.  I was slow to jump on it and missed out on the super-cool tiger stripe, but I scored a nice “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea” copy, and there are still plenty to choose from.  There are even four different variations of the sleeve.

JCE’s copy of the new single in a beautiful colored vinyl “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea”

You can order the record here: https://i-94recordings.com/.  And take note; there’s not going to be any digital streaming options for this one, boys and girls.

As for the tunes themselves, well, I’ll just say that Jeremy, Gabe and Jake knocked these two out of the park.  The A-side - which was penned by Mr. Porter - in his words, “Just sort of came as a result of diving deep obsessively into Nancy Sinatra’s catalog during the pandemic, reading the liner notes late one night, with the lights dimmed and a candle burning.”  The song, to me, definitely has a bit of a retro vibe.  The opening chords will grab you immediately, and the song builds quickly and remains steady after throughout.  At the two minute mark there’s some great guitar which sounds briefly like surf music.  It’s pretty great.  The lyrics of the song cut off abruptly at the end, leaving off the obvious final word.  I can’t listen to it without singing along, and I always mistakenly add the word “boots” at the end.  Just listen to the song and you’ll understand what I mean.

The B-side is a cover of a sort of psychedelic pop song, again with a bit of a 1960’s feel to it.  I made the effort to listen to the original version by The Waxwings for comparison.  The Tucos are true to the original, but their cover version has much more punch.  It’s more rock n roll, and if you know me, you will know that I much prefer the cover for that reason.  I love the harder edge and little bit more grit the Tucos brought to the song.  And, the Tucos’ version has some great harmonies and background vocals that sound amazing and they succeed in maintaining the flavor of the original.

I recommend that you snap up a copy of this.  Both songs come in under three minutes, and they leave me wanting more.  I guess it will have to tide me over until next year when I believe we can expect a new record from this excellent rock n roll three-piece from Detroit Michigan. Once again, get it here:  https://i-94recordings.com/ 

Well done, boys.

JCE, or John to his friends, was born in 1963 in the Nation’s Capital.  He grew up in the VA suburbs of D.C.  His earliest musical memories are tied to a transistor radio with a single earphone that he carried everywhere listening to AM radio. At this point he still listens to a steady diet of punk, power pop, metal (Faster Pussycat=Yes, Megadeath=No), alt country and anything that has plenty of good guitar and drums.